The Supreme Court has handed down a decision on the Voting Rights Law of 1965. Since its passage, the law has given the Department of Justice the power to review anything to do with voting in those states and political subdivisions which, in the 1960s, displayed a pattern of voting discrimination. This law has been re-enacted ever since it was first passed, most recently in 2006 by wide, bi-partisan majorities.

The Supreme Court has ruled that those states involved should be released from federal prior approval of their voting rules. The prevailing argument, by 5-4, held simply that the situation in the 1960s is no longer applicable and that Congress needs to write new guidelines. The better argument is for the right of states to make their own rules.

The sense was that, while the age-old efforts to cheat the citizenry out of its right to vote continues to flourish, it was no longer only the province of the six states of the Old Confederacy covered by the law, but that these states had, in the main, made great strides in insuring equality at the ballot box. Justice Roberts’ argument ignores the fact that in 2006, updated data were used, but no matter. If Congress were able to review the rules and make necessary changes, the law would be constitutional, but Congress is incapable of passing a resolution supporting motherhood, so effectively much of the law’s clout is removed. As if to prove that we’ve still got a ways to go in this area, Texas immediately imposed a Voter ID requirement which had been denied under the old law as discriminatory. Way to go Texas!

The opinion, ironically, finds the Supreme Court majority legislating from the bench counter to the desires of the legislative branch, specifically reversing a near-unanimous vote less than ten years ago in the Congress. That goes way past interpretation all the way to legislating. The Court majority became the very “activist judges” that conservatives love to rail against, overturning legislation that had passed by a unanimous vote in the US Senate.

The law has had one unintended and damaging consequence, namely a ghettoization of Congressional districts. As one Florida lawmaker so poetically put it, “shoveling as many Jews as possible” into the district of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. The congressional district of Rep. Corrine Brown meanders from Jacksonville to south of Orlando, corralling a majority of African American voters, thus guaranteeing a black congressional seat, but doing so at the expense of fairness and corralling a majority white population in other districts.

The results of these shenanigans has tended to produce districts that are ideologically polarized and that in turn has produced a Congress virtually incapable of doing anything and averse to the moderation of the middle.

Such well-meaning efforts create what Michael Gerson called “the soft bigotry of lowered expectations.” It suggests that a highly qualified minority candidate cannot win in a district that reflects a racial mix. It suggests that in order for a qualified minority person to win, you have to tilt the playing field. You might note that Barack Obama took Florida twice.

If the whole concept of race made any sense whatever, that would be one thing, but it doesn’t. Science, genetics and medicine long ago concluded there is no such thing as “race.” Humankind tends to discriminate, Sunni or Shia, Tutsi or Hutu; we will find a way. There is such a thing as social class, there is such a thing as culture, such a thing as having a light or dark complexion.

There is a divide between those who are educated and those who are not, between Type As and Type Bs, but there is no such thing as race. Perhaps we should determine the fitness to cast votes on our preferences in music: classical or hip-hop; our tastes in cooking being Wisconsin Hot-Dish or Italian Provincial. It’s every bit as logical. The hope of this country is the fact that, bit by bit, we are doing our best to rise above prejudice and bigotry
The upcoming generation seems to hold that discrimination is witless, whether it be based on race, gender or sexual orientation. Black, White, Asian or Native American, gay, straight, Protestant, Catholic or Agnostic ... this upcoming generation assumes we’re all in the same boat judged, as Dr. King had dreamed, by the contents of their character and nothing else. The current generation of political leadership may not get it, but the generation behind them does.

It is notable that all the great teachers have spoken strongly against discrimination. For those of you fond of Scripture, try this: “There is not Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female, but all are children of God.” It also applies to fairness in voting.